'Beyond Reckless': Mark Kelly Torches Hegseth, Top Level Trump Officials Over Leaked Signal Chat

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During a press briefing on Tuesday, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) criticized Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for his role in a leaked Signal chat that included war plans against the Houthis.  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript   Stay Connected Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:03Good afternoon, everybody.

00:06Some of the most sensitive information that any military service has has to do with the

00:17timing and the platforms and the weapon systems that are going to be used today, tomorrow,

00:27the next day.

00:29Senator Duckworth and I both flew combat missions over Iraq.

00:34For me, it was in the first Gulf War in 1991.

00:38For Senator Duckworth, it was the second war in Iraq, 2003 and beyond that.

00:47If while I was planning a strike off the USS Midway in the early days of Desert Storm,

00:56if somebody would have told me that the Secretary of Defense at the time, Dick Cheney, was about

01:03to release the details of our combat mission over an unsecured platform, obviously at the

01:11time Signal did not exist, I would have just been shocked.

01:15And all of us would have realized very quickly that this has put us at much more additional

01:21risk.

01:23Countries like Yemen have early warning systems to see when airplanes and missile systems

01:30are coming at them offensively.

01:35In this case, if this information would have been shared beyond that reporter and would

01:42have made its way to unfriendly countries and ultimately shared with Yemen and the Houthis,

01:50they don't need that early warning system anymore.

01:52They basically know which direction the airplanes are coming from because they know where the

01:56aircraft carrier is.

01:57They know the timing.

01:58You can see on this chart here.

02:01And it's not around, right?

02:03You notice at the bottom, I think it says 1536 or something like that, 1536 F-18 second

02:10strike starts.

02:12That's not around 330.

02:15It's incredibly specific.

02:18That information came from a classified document or classified information that was shared

02:25with the Secretary of Defense over the phone.

02:30And to put this in a Signal chain to other members of the senior national security team

02:39at the White House is beyond irresponsible.

02:43It is reckless.

02:45And I can't even figure out why he did it.

02:50It's not important information to those folks on the Signal chain.

02:55I think he was sort of showing off that he had this information.

02:58He's obviously new in this job.

03:01And it was my view before he was confirmed that he was unprepared to take on this role,

03:08the least qualified Secretary of Defense in perhaps our country's history.

03:16One thing we learned in the military is when you make a mistake, you've got to own up to

03:20it.

03:21And I think most folks in that position would have owned up to it at this point.

03:26And all we've heard from Secretary of Defense Hegseth is excuses.

03:32So I stand here with my colleagues calling on the let's get this investigation underway.

03:42Chairman Wicker and Ranking Member Reid have both called for an IG investigation.

03:49And we need to get to the bottom of this.

03:51And it's incredibly concerning to me that this is probably not a one-off event, that

03:58this unsecured Signal platform was likely used on multiple other occasions to share

04:06classified information.

04:08And that not only puts our service members at risk, it puts all of us at risk.

04:16And Senator Hirono.

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